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Regime Shakes Down Banks for $25 Billion

RUSH: On the foreclosure front, big news here. Eric Holder and attorneys general from 42 states have shaken down the country's mortgage lenders for $25 billion. Folks, this whole notion of these predatory lenders and people being tricked into taking out a mortgage, have you ever heard of that happening? People wandering innocently by a bank on the street and some guy inside the bank with a hook grabs 'em in, "Okay, pal, you're taking out a mortgage." That's what the regime wants us to believe happened with this.

So as part of a campaign effort here, reelection effort, $25 billion from the country's mortgage lenders to give to customers who were hit upon and forced, under duress, to take out a mortgage... (interruption) What was that? Can you get a piece? Perhaps. I think everybody's share comes out to as much as $20,000. You might get paid off as much as $20,000 here if I'm reading it right. Now, what this is, folks, is social justice at work, because after all, the banks were forced by the government at the point of a gun to loan to people they knew couldn't afford the mortgages. That's what really happened. That's the root of the subprime mortgage crisis. It was the government forcing the banks to lend money to people that never had a chance, would never be able to repay the loans. Social justice, affordable housing, the so-called good intentions and don't judge us on the failure of our results.

So now the banks have the pay the price for making those bad loans. This is all part of continuing the ruse that the banks were the originators of this scandal and the originators of the problem. And so now there's a $25 billion shakedown. I'm gonna tell you, Snerdley, you can apply for it, but I'm gonna tell you -- all of you mortgage people -- you are not gonna see a dime. This is nothing but a slush fund. What Obama has done was gone to the bank, 'cause they're having trouble fundraising. They're nowhere near their billion dollars they've been bragging about. You ought to see what they're gonna do at their convention. They're gonna charge, what is it, a million dollars for a skybox. A million-dollar donation or something like that, to witness Obama's acceptance speech. I think there's a million-dollar charge or donation for something.

But clearly, the Democrat national convention closing night for Obama's acceptance will be accessible primarily only to the 1%. They're gonna be the only people with the money to get in there, at least in a highfalutin way. So back to this foreclosure business. The banks were forced by the government at the point of a gun -- Janet Reno threatening them with investigations if they didn't participate in the program. They had to lend money to people that could not afford mortgages. So now the banks have to pay the price for making these bad loans. See, the banks, these evil, rotten bankers who tricked people into taking out a mortgage. I still want you to visualize that. I want you to visualize how, in your own life, how you could be tricked into taking out a mortgage. But the ruse must continue. So the banks have to now pay again. They've got to pay $25 billion.

I'm told that somebody in the regime was actually fighting for $300 billion for the banks and they said, "Nah, that's too much. That's a big overreach. We're gonna have problems. We'll settle for $25 billion. Nobody will have a problem with that." Now the banks are gonna have to give $25 billion ostensibly, now, to the people who shoulda never gotten these loans in the first place. People are underwater, who were foreclosed on. Textbook case of social justice. You hear the term, this is exactly how it manifests itself. (interruption) He does have a stash. Once again, what you have here is the force of government threatening the banks. The attorney general, Eric Holder, and the attorneys general, the 42 states, i.e., the government calling on the banks, "Hey, guess what we need from you, gang? We need a grand aggregate here of $25 billion." "What if we don't pay?" "You don't want to know if you don't pay." It's a shakedown.

Now, this is Obama servicing his constituents. He is fulfilling that campaign promise he made to pay their mortgages. You may think, "Come on, Rush, he didn't promise that." We ought to dig out sound bites from one of his early town halls in 2009, the famous one that was in I think Tampa where a woman, who it turned out had a couple of houses or whatever, stood up and wanted a new kitchen. She thought that's what the election of Obama meant. That's what she thought it meant. I'm sure a lot of people that voted for Obama thought that's what their lives held in store for them. Obama was gonna give them a house. Obama was gonna make sure that all the transgressions and all the discrimination and all the evil that had been perpetrated against these people in all of these years since the country was founded is gonna be fixed here.

Obama's gonna make sure they get what they've been denied. That's what they thought. They even showed up at town halls and asked him. As I said previously mere moments ago and I think quite accurately, I will be shocked if any of these people ever see any of that $25 billion. It's just gonna get laundered back to the Democrat National Committee, which most union salaries end up being laundered back, at least a percentage of them, to the Democrat National Committee. That's where all of this kind of money, most of it, ends up ultimately. But we're told that one million underwater homeowners could be eligible for as much as $20,000.

If you're underwater, if you're a victim of predatory lending, what they're gonna tell you is, if you're one of the one million underwater homeowners, you could be eligible, not that you're automatically qualified, you could be eligible for as much as $20,000 in relief of the principal you owed, not the interest, relief of the principal that you owe. Let's just extrapolate this. Let's play this out. Even if that miracle should happen -- and it won't -- where's the justice in it? Why should people be rewarded for being behind on their house payments? Why? Just because they shouldn't have been lent the money in the first place? Why should the rest of us, including responsible homeowners and renters, have to pay higher ATM fees and banking fees? Because that's where the $25 billion gonna coming from. You think the banks are just gonna give it up? Wait 'til you see what happens to the checking account service fee, your ATM fee, your credit card issuance fee, whatever.

There are gonna be a series of fees added to your banking experience to pay for this $25 billion. And why? Why should you have to pay for this? Plus there's a story here in the stack somewhat down that it's been learned here that "the government (i.e., taxpayers) is paying for cell phone service for the poor. We're actually paying the bills. We are paying not just for landline telephones for rural people. Now we're paying cell phone charges for the very poor and the moderately poor and the not-really poor. And it's all part of this great story on dependence in this country and how many people have become dependent and how so and on what.

As I say, we're loaded with stuff. It's gonna be a barn-burner today as we go through it all. Now, again, out of curiosity (I just don't want to let this go), I want to ask this again: Have any of you ever met anyone who was "tricked" into a mortgage? A lot of you have people who live in homes that they're paying a mortgage on. How many of them...? I'm sure you've talked to them. How many of you have told you they were "tricked"? Not with the terms of the mortgage, not the interest rate or anything, but tricked into getting one? How many of these people are there? This is what they want us to believe. The regime wants us to believe there are some innocent, clean-and-pure-as-the-wind-driven snow people out there minding their own business.

Some evil bankers came along and tricked them into taking out a mortgage. That's the basic claim, that these evil bankers (who are all big supporters of Obama and the Democrat Party: JPMorgan Chase, General Motors Acceptance Corporation, Bank of America) tricked poor people into applying for mortgages. They tricked people into lying about their incomes and assets, and they used robosigning. Have you ever heard of robosigning? (interruption) You have? (interruption) You know what robosigning is? I didn't know what it was. I had to dig deep and find out. You know where the term comes from? What it really means? Robosigning is a term that was coined by a foreclosure lawyer in Florida way back in October 2011. It was made up out of whole cloth.

And it refers to imaginary, evil bankers who they claim didn't read all the documents they signed when they gave mortgages to these poor people that they tricked. Normally we hear about the lender not reading the document. In this case, the banks didn't read their own documents. As though we're supposed to believe the banks prepare the documents, their legal team, but nobody at the bank read the document. They just robosigned these things! In other words, the evil mortgage lenders might not have verified all the information that was put down in some mortgage applications. Isn't that criminal? So these robosigners ought to go to jail for not having been more thorough in preventing poor people from getting loans -- even though at the exact same time the federal government was twisting their arms to give out even more loans to poor people.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Just one more thing on this foreclosure story. If you'll notice, all of the Drive-Bys reporting on today's foreclosure settlement always list Ally Financial. It's a-l-l-y. It may be pronounced "al-lee," I'm not sure. If it was a name it would be "al-lee." But they list Ally Financial as one of the top five banks involved. Ally Financial is gonna be forced to pony up the $25 billion. They never bother to tell you that Ally Financial is really General Motors. Ally Financial is GMAC! That's General Motors' lending arm. They changed their name from GMAC in 2010 to Ally Financial. And lest we forget, folks, GMAC was bailed out to the tune of $12.5 billion in the original bailout in 2008, late in that year. Now, as of January 2012, Ally Financial, or General Motors Acceptance Corporation still owed the US taxpayer $12 billion.

So today's deal means that we, the American taxpayers, will now also have to pay for their share of the $25 billion shakedown. Just to close the loop on all this.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Let's go to the audio sound bites. Obama, about a half hour ago, went to the cameras and microphones for a victory lap after his latest bank shakedown. This is the new foreclosure plan. I spent a lot of time in the first hour on this, but now we've got Obama adding to it. This is the $25 billion shakedown of the banks, $25 billion the banks are going to have to pay as a penalty for "tricking" people into taking mortgages they couldn't afford. And theoretically, the $25 billion is going to be spread around to all these poor people who got screwed, who were tricked, up to $20,000 a person. So here's Obama talking about the federal housing settlement. We have one, two, three sound bites. The first one is now.

OBAMA: Millions of Americans who did the right thing and the responsible thing -- shopped for a house, secured a mortgage that they could afford, made their payments on time -- were nevertheless hurt badly by the irresponsible actions of others.

RUSH: Stop the tape! Stop the tape! Stop! Stop! Stop the tape! I love this. This is the setup: "Millions of Americans who did the right thing ... were nevertheless hurt badly by the irresponsible actions of others." Now, normally in the real world that would be a setup for the irresponsible citizens who took advantage of a program that they didn't need. But, no, that's not who he's talking about, the irresponsible actions of others. Here's is who he's talking about.

OBAMA: Lenders who sold loans to people, uh, who couldn't afford them -- by buyers who knew they couldn't afford them, by speculators who were looking to make a quick buck; by banks that took risky mortgages, packaged them up, uh, and traded them off for large profits. It was wrong, and it cost more than four million families their homes to foreclosure.

RUSH: That's right. They were tricked! These poor schlubs, they were tricked into this, but now Obama's getting even with the tricksters. Obama is getting even with these evil bankers, the lenders who sold loans to people that couldn't afford them. I can't tell you how big a lie all of this is. All of this is a lie. Well, some of this stuff happened, but the reason for it is a total, total lie. The banks did take risky mortgages and package 'em up and traded 'em off, sold 'em to other unsuspecting dupes until they weren't any unsuspecting dupes left. And then it was, "Bye-bye, Lehman Brothers," and, "Hello, bailouts," and that's exactly what happened.

The banks were told to lend money, people couldn't afford 'em, they did. Under federal duress. There was no income stream on these mortgages because people couldn't pay them back, they never qualified, they never were gonna be able to pay them back. So worthless mortgages with no income stream were packaged up sold. Mortgage-backed securities. Yes, a brand-new financial product and they were sold to unsuspecting people. "Look at the income stream from all of these mortgages," and their eyes got big and they saw a monthly income stream out the wazoo! Until they found out nobody's making payments on their mortgages. They couldn't afford them. They had no money. So the second dupees found a new way to package the mortgages for a third set of dupees.

And they kept going and kept going until they weren't any people left to dupe. And then it was time to bail everybody out for this. The people who did the right thing are the people who are gonna pay for the people who do the wrong thing. The people that did the right thing -- got a mortgage, make the payments -- you are the ones paying for the people that did the wrong thing. The banks bundled these mortgages to try to protect themselves. They were forced to make these transactions! They knew they are shaky. They were trying to share the risk. I don't know, did Clinton and Obama just expect the banks to go under? Did they except them just to absorb all of this as the definition of "affordable housing" and "social justice"? Here's the second Obama sound bite as he takes his victory lap here.

OBAMA: These banks will put billions of dollars towards relief for families across the nations. They'll provide refinancing for borrowers that are stuck in high interest rate mortgages, will reduce loans for families who owe more on their homes than they're worth, and they will deliver some measure of justice for families that have already been victims of abusive practices.

RUSH: I tell you: I want to throw up. "Justice." Obama has extracted justice, "a measure of justice for families that have already been victims of abusive practices." Yep. They were walking down the street, minding their own business. They look across the way, they see a pretty woman and think of Roy Orbison song. They have their mind occupied, and here comes I banker.

"Hey, get your butt in here! I'm tricking you into taking a mortgage on a house."

"Oh, really? I have no money."

"Yes, you gotta get your butt in here and I'm gonna make you sign a piece of paper. You're gonna buy a house today."

"Really?"

"Yep, and you don't even have to have the money to afford it. If you don't do this, they're gonna put me in jail. So get your butt in here and sign the paper and go deal with your house."

And that's the definition of trickery. And that is what they want us to believe happened: Innocent people thinking of Roy Orbison songs walking down the street, getting roped into a bank by a banker afraid of going to jail, making 'em sign a mortgage that they couldn't afford. Now, how many of you know anybody to whom that happened? Throw the Roy Orbison stuff out of the equation. They're just walking down the street and a banker comes out the front door and says, "Get in here! I'm loaning you some money to buy a house." This does not happen. Here's the final Obama bite.

OBAMA: No measure of justice is enough to make it right for a family who's had their piece of the American dream wrongly taken from them.

RUSH: Yeah. God.

OBAMA: And no action, no matter mow meaningful --

RUSH: Mmm.

OBAMA -- is gonna, by itself, entirely heal --

RUSH: Mmm. Mmm.

OBAMA: the housing market.

RUSH: Oh, of course not! No.

OBAMA: But this settlement is a start.

RUSH: Yes!

OBAMA: We're gonna make sure that the banks live up to their end of the bargain.

RUSH: Yeeees.

OBAMA: If they don't, we've set up an independent inspector --

RUSH: Oh!

OBAMA: -- a monitor --

RUSH: Oh.

OBAMA: -- that has the power to make sure they pay exactly --

RUSH: Oh.

OBAMA: -- what --

RUSH: Ohhhh.

OBAMA: -- they agree to pay --

RUSH: Oh.

OBAMA: -- plus a penalty.

RUSH: Oh.

OBAMA: -- if they fail to act in accordance with this --

RUSH: Oh.

OBAMA: -- agreement.

RUSH: Wow, another czar. A commissar! A bank commissar czar who's gonna enforce the settlement, who's gonna be breathing down the necks of these bankers and making sure they don't screw people all over again.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: That's right. Obama has just announced a shakedown czar. This czar is a shakedown czar. He's gonna be shaking down the banks for this money and more. You know who'd be really qualified for this is the Reverend Jackson, who has made a career out of shaking down people. What a great guy to be the shakedown czar, and it might help shore up the African-American vote for Obama. Not that he needs it, but it certainly couldn't hurt.